5 posts tagged “yoshiki”

I'm in the middle of my busiest weekend of the entire semester right now (two papers and a proposal due on Monday! >_< ugh) so I'm not going to be around for a while, but I just couldn't resist sharing this image!  Man, I love Yoshiki...he's such an adorably dorky and funny person.

Also, the pv preview for DELUHI'S 'REVOLVER BLAST' off their upcoming mini-album is out!  It's hard to comment on the song from such a short clip, but the members have interesting new looks...Juri and Aggy look very different with the change in hairstyle, but overall they seem to have gone a little simpler and less elaborate with mostly monochrome outfits this time around.  I look forward to hearing what styles they've put into the mini-album as well as if they'll stick with this toned down appearance or move back to their previous, more flamboyant fashion at some point. 

Aaah, first the awful news about Jasmine You, and now this announcement has been released by X JAPAN saying that Yoshiki will soon be undergoing some pretty serious sounding surgery! >_<  He's had physical health problems for a long time, but they say his condition recently worsened and has interfered with his music creation so he's decided to get this operation done to hopefully try and fix it. 

I really hope Yoshiki gets through it ok...I don't even want to contemplate the possiblity that he might not be able to recover fully or something worse happening.  I mean, I can't imagine him not being able to make music, it's just so integral to him personally, and he'd probably be crushed. :'(  Plus, if anything happened to Yoshiki, probably THE most important and famous figure in visual kei, it would be a horribly hard hit for all the fans, especially at this time when the shock of the loss of Jasmine You is still so fresh and rippling through the community.  Then again, I don't want to get ahead of things and invite bad occurences or make things even more depressing, so I'd just like to wish Yoshiki all the best for his sugery and the road to recovery ahead.  I hope he gets well soon and can make a happy, less painful return to music aided by the support of fans.

A ton of awesome releases are coming up in the next few weeks as well as later in the summer, so many exciting previews of what's to come are continuing to be released.  THE KIDDIE have put out a pv preview for their upcoming single 'elite STAR+'!  It looks really good and the song sounds interesting as well.  Their look for this release vaguely reminds me of the one for 'Sayonara Setsuna', probably because they seem to be using similar greys, darks, and whites paired with blue hues and animal print accents.  The single comes out July 8th...I can't wait to hear the full song! : )

In addition, girugamesh have posted new looks and the cd cover for their upcoming single 'BORDER', which is due for release August 5th.  They're going at a pretty fast pace with their releases, and once again have chosen to do a single (though they hadn't done so in ages before 'ALIVE', tending to release albums instead).  I suspect this is because of the long Crazy Crazy Crazy tour they finished earlier this year, since they probably wrote a good amount of material while on the road (they even started recording parts of 'ALIVE' during it).  The cover for 'BORDER' is unexpected but somehow just what one would expect from girugamesh...乾杯！ ^_^;　さすがだね（笑） But I have no idea what's up with all the random Americana in the background...I guess we'll have to wait for an interview with the guys to enlighten us on that one.
  
Anyway, the boys seem to be sticking to hoodies+jeans for now, but this time have opted for black zip-up style ones with white designs on either side of the chest and down one arm.  Nii and Shuu look almost the same as before except for some minor changes, but Satoshi's gotten rid of the perm and cut his hair short again...it really suits him and goes well with his face shape.  However, when I saw the new photos I was immediately wowed by how adorable Ryo looks!  His hair is also short but more conventionally styled (no braids or half up, half down styling), and it makes him look even younger and *gasp* slightly feminine when he poses like that in his solo photo, but it's cute and an interesting change. ^_^

girugamesh have been gradually shifting to a softer, more handsome, clean look for a while now.  If you look at their style over time they went from dark and scary, heavy make-up, contacts, and spiky dyed hair to limited eyeliner and natural all black hair, as well as transitioning from the formal black suits to casual wear.  Though they've shown it before, with this I believe they can definitely break the unfortunate (and untrue!) idea among some fans that girugamesh is an ugly band for good.

On completely different, more personal note, I made an amazing discovery today!  First off, I realized a little over a year ago that I'm mildly lactose intolerant which explained why I couldn't stand eating too much cream/dairy-based sauces and I hate drinking milk.  However, I've always been a big fan of cereal, and like to have it for breakfast, but as I ingested less and less milk I became less tolerant and more disgusted by it, so I tried to find a good alternative.  I used soy milk for a while, but found the beany aftertaste a bit unappetizing unless masked by chocolate flavour, but I didn't want to use that all the time since it has so much sugar and overpowers the cereal. 
So I was at a loss for some time while I searched for a good alternative, but milk substitutes are often hard to find and dominated by soy-based products.  There is rice milk, but that didn't sound much better than soy milk.  But, today for the first time I found almond milk at Whole Foods, and was overjoyed!  I'd always wanted to try it but could never get it anywhere before and thought it might be more expensive, but actually it was priced very similar to the cow's milk.  So, I bought a carton of the vanilla flavoured and tested it when I got home....it was incredibly delicious!  None of the heaviness of soy milk, and way smoother and more refreshing...plus, I actually like the faint taste of almonds.  The word あっさり perfectly describes it!  It was seriously like love at first taste...I'm totally hooked now. XD  I definitely recommend almond milk to anyone who's interested in a cow's milk substitute for whatever reason.
[Amusingly enough, even this does in a way relate to music...one of the first times I heard of almond milk was ages ago in some tv interview with Yoshiki where he said he doesn't drink cow's milk, he drinks almond milk! :D]

Dir en grey will be releasing their new single, 'Glass Skin' on September 10th, and a new album (title tba) is set to follow later this year.  They discussed some details about the new album in an interview for 'Metal Hammer' magazine:

“The album will be stuffed with themes of ‘guilt and reincarnation’, as well as ‘the past, present and future of Dir En Grey,” says guitarist Kaoru. ‘This will be heavier and darker than previous albums, with a sort of oriental and religious mood and connotations. We’re experimenting with different sounds - we’d like to introduce a multitude of different instruments on this album.” [original article]

Sounds interesting...but unfortunately, Diru also said that Yoshiki will NOT be producing the album, but rather they will be self-producing once again.  This news is a bit disappointing, because I love the Gauze album and the sound of the music they made working with Yoshiki, so I thought it would be very interesting to see them work together again with Diru's new harder style, but oh well...I'm pretty confident they'll turn out something good on their own, if the last single was any indication of where they're heading.  I hope they keep moving further in the stylistic direction of 'Dozing Green' and don't go along the same lines as MoaB, because I was not a big fan of the last album. (In fact, it's the only album of theirs that I don't own a hard copy of) ^_^lll

Yay, how exciting!  Even though I'm not going to Japan until several months from now, I feel like blogging about random stuff in the mean time, just for fun. ^_^  (I'll probably end up talking about music most of the time, or Japan related stuff...)

Lately I've been thinking about where I want to go while in Kyoto...there's lots of places in the city, of course, plus Nara and Osaka nearby, and Tokyo...but I was thinking it might be nice to go to Mie-ken during one of the breaks. It's a prefecture facing the Pacific, within the Kansai region like Kyoto.  Ise shrine, the most important, holiest shrine in Japan is there and apparently there's also the third best onsen (hot springs) in the country, a very nice aquarium, and the town of Futami, where the famous Wedded Rocks are (it's a gorgeous view!):

I have no idea how I'd set that kind of trip up or if I'd have the money, but it would be nice...and if I can find some people who want to come along, that'd be even better.

Anyways, on another note, Miyavi's new album came out this week...it's pretty interesting, a mix of hip-hop elements, rock, some traditional Japanese instruments and other distinctly Asian sounds/melodies.  He's really added upon this new style he started with 'Sakihokoru hana no you ni'...the blend of traditional Japanese stuff (e.g. kabuki aesthetics) with urban street-styles and hip-hop techniques, done in a visual kei way. Certainly not for everyone, but creative and intriguing nonetheless. I really respect what he's trying to do with this new message and I like his honest outlook on things, especially what he says about how lots of people get too hung up on appearances and genres and create prejudices when it comes to music and who listens to what, etc.  Unnecessary categorization and division of anything is really pointless in my opinion. : )  Ok, enough of my ranting...here's two cool new tracks from the cd:

'21st Century Tokyo Blues'

'Nowheregod'